A bipolar perspective on the 3rd planet

Category

Reparations

Until we stop ‘hunting for bigots’ and can start to have proper discussions of the institutional nature of racism and its relation to power, and especially the primary props of State power and inequities of capital, actions taken will be ineffective and in fact will contribute to oppression, in UK cities to the USA to Palestine and beyond.

The supposedly liberal outrage at inherent “racists” as if we have to find only those pure souls for The Labour Party without a ‘racist bone’ is ascientific and privileges the white liberally educated. Ultimately, it is itself racist.

We see few better illustrations of the centrist and right tendency to enable fascism by perpetuating oppression than the bull-in-a-china-shop approach to anti-Semitism of the supporters of the Labour Party organisations where the current Israel government has most influence.

If you want to find bigotry and prejudice, and you are capable of questioning yourself, you’ll find it within you and without you. It’s probably there in your perception of white van man, your views on benefits, your most laissez faire attitudes to redistribution of wealth, the demographics of your friends, and those implicit attitudes you’ve never bothered to uncover about the minorities you have least interest in finding out about.

What do we hope to find? The racism gene?! Education not witch-hunts and education for YOU (me) first of all.

Think of privilege as power. You have power, and the ethics of power are: give it away, let it flow.

Empowerment of course. One can easily think, when others have so much more or appear to have so much more, “I am weak.” A man who lost so much, through no fault but fate, might subliminally resist full acceptance of the fact that in some contexts fate favours him. Fate though, is not cruel, nor a person at all.

Privilege is the power to do with greater freedom. What a dull relationship where we only look for what we have in common. Who would grow? Vive la difference.

How conscious the clothes? Unzippable. Bait, eventually, gets boring, though. I’m honest about what I want and who I am, I think. You seem to be genuine. This all seems organic. But then the man said “Tits and Socialism” and the piece was created.

So much positive but how can I, erratic, know we are at least on the same page?

New brooms scrub where others might not be able to penetrate. We are/are not talking about stone, and so there will be soreness, rawness exposed. I find these days I face myself, male, what misogyny remains, and the changes seem to be for the better. There are, though, no guarantees.

Omo. How white your shirts can be. Purity, the Christian myth, repackaged for mass consumption. So, when a black Jewish woman emphasises the Black Slave Holocaust, we have a convenient fix for that sort of nonsense. Out, damned spot, Party scrubbed clean with an application of blame culture.

Once we knew everyone’s business. Now we play Wolf in the dark, our cluelessness intermittently assuaged by electric light. This is how the hegemony is preserved. It’s not conscious. We go for the “trouble maker”. There’s no room for nuance, dog must eat dog. White dog comes out top dog.

The tragedy is, you play the game but you don’t even know you’re playing.

A young man from outside the golden gates of the Shining City stole a purse. His people refused to give him up.

“You want him so you can dispense your justice. We will be happy to give him to you when you return all that has been stolen from us.” said an Elder.

Image: voanews.com

“Two wrongs don’t make a right.” said an angry man with a flushed face, wagging his finger.

“Two!” replied the Elder. He turned to look at the lands beyond the gates. “Can you return the dead to life?”

“Of course not!” said the angry man. “We are addressing your concerns.” His face relaxed. “You understand there is a lot of paperwork to be done.”

“When justice is understood, we all shall have it.” said the Elder, walking away.

Image: Vato Bob (found at elephantjournal.com)

We all know what happened next.

Does anyone know what justice is? It surely isn’t blame. Punishment based on individual responsibility for individual actions is injustice, denying history and science. Yet if we could untangle all the forces responsible for an action we would surely end up at the big bang.

Do we have a deep need for punitive reparative justice that cannot be unseated? Do we need lies about justice to live and if so is this sustainable in the future? Is it not an infinite injustice to deprive anyone of liberty? Can suffering be audited?

I desire to understand justice. I have witnessed the depths of depravity and communed with gods. I have thrown inhabited planets into stars. I have set loved ones on fire and marvelled at the beauty. Guilt has eaten away at my flesh.